1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to heated holding cabinets for bulk food items and, more particularly, to structure for continuously loading unheated food items into the cabinet and for removing the food items from the cabinet generally in the order that they are introduced.
2. Background Art
It is known to heat and/or maintain the temperature of bulk food items in cabinets having internal spaces that are heated and oftimes humidified. Such cabinets are commonly used in restaurant and fast food operations for previously cooked dinner rolls, nacho chips, and the like. One style cabinet uses a plurality of slidable drawers which are opened for loading and closed to situate the loaded food items in the conditioned space within the cabinet.
The above structure has several drawbacks. Ideally, the drawers are sufficiently small that they can be readily closed and opened by the operator. In high volume operations, a large number of drawers may have to be used. Resultingly, such structures often take up a substantial amount of valuable space.
Additionally, such structures make quality control a very difficult task. On most cabinets, there is no way to monitor the amount of time that the food items have been in a particular drawer. Frequently, the items are removed from the drawer(s) before being thoroughly heated. Further, there may be a demand for a large number of food items requiring emptying of the contents of several drawers. It is unlikely that the temperature of the goods in each drawer will be uniform.
A further problem with the above structure is that there is a tendency, particularly when servers are rushed, to remove the last loaded foods, which are the most accessible. The result is that the fully heated foods remain in the drawer and the only partially heated food items are removed.